It has been revealed that Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council handed out 389 fines, totalling £24,610, for cars parked on St Stephen’s Road in Bournemouth between June last year and the end of this May, says The Telegraph.
The Government is set to use the results from Bournemouth’s trials to assess whether higher parking fines could be rolled out more widely.
The town is regularly gridlocked during warm weather because of its high tourism levels, with motorists double-parking or using verges and data released under freedom of information laws showed that the authority had issued most of the tickets for restricted parking or overstaying
Drivers received 135 fines for parking in restricted areas and 126 for overstaying, while another 49 tickets were for failing to display a valid residents’ permit.
Other offences included 29 loading-bay cases, 30 cases of waiting or unloading where banned, and six vehicles in disabled bays.
The road was included in a trial in Bournemouth last August, where parking fines and penalty charge notices were doubled during the summer holidays.
The trial will be repeated next month, when fines for “higher tariff” offences will increase from £70 to £160. The council believes increasing the cost of penalties will deter illegal parking.
Cllr Richard Herrett, the cabinet member for parking at BCP council, said:
“All of St Stephen’s Road is already covered by parking restrictions – but this does not always offer an effective deterrent, as these figures show.
“However, St Stephen’s Road was included in last year’s trial of increased parking fines and penalty charge notices, carried out in August.”
Mr Herrett added that there was a significant fall in the total number of penalty charge notices issued on St Stephen’s Road during the trial, with 27 fewer than August 2024 – a decrease of 7 per cent.
He said: “We will repeat this trial in August 2026 following our continued calls to the Government for a permanent solution to reduce illegal parking. This trial offers another opportunity to show that increased fines work.”
(Picture: Mapillary)
